I can't believe that it was nine years ago that we were suffering through one of the worst ice storms in memory. I remember things start off slowly with some predictions for freezing rain. If your are at all familiar with Ottawa, freezing rain is not uncommon at all. We normally take it in stride.
This storm was different.
Over a period of four days we got something nearing 85mm of freezing rain. It was actually a beautiful sight with everything covered in ice.
It was strange living through it because it was happening in slow motion. It never really rained that hard it was more like a steady drizzle. We were very luck. Our power never went out once in our house. Power was out all around us be we were spared. Some homes in the surrounding villages of Ottawa had no power for weeks, I think at the height of the storm almost 2 million homes were without power.
Mark and I didn't get away without any problems though. Because we both work in the grocery business we weren't given the luxury of staying home like most of the people in the city. We were expected to make our way through all the ice to work. I remember the first day not being to bad, slow going, but I lived very close to work. It was the second day things got ruff. Sometime during the first night a lovely tree in our front yard gave way under all the ice and collapsed towards the house. We were very lucky that it did not hit the house but the tree was just far enough away to land on our front step. No damage, but we had to climb through a tree to get out our front door.
I think my most vivid memory about the ice storm was about work. I was working in a fair sized grocery store at the time and we would normally have about four or five cashiers working during the day. I remember trying to keep things moving smoothly because it was busy.(The worse the weather forecast the busier the store gets) It was about ten o'clock in the morning when the City of Ottawa declared a state of emergency.
I had never experienced panic buying before but I got witness it fist hand. All our customers were very calm but the store filled up in what seemed like an instant. I just remember getting on a cash and having the store owner call anyone he could to come in and work.
Normally when we know there will be a huge increase in business we can plan ahead and order in supplies, but the week after New Years is traditionally a very slow time so stock was low. We started running out of things by about 3pm in the afternoon. We we ran out of staples like bread, and milk. Thats when people started to get worried. I remember getting a call from a Citizen reporter asking what was going on, a customer had called to say that there were going to be shortages.
We survived.
I was looking back for info on the ice storm and I was surprised to read that 1998 was also an El Nino year and thats what most weather forecasters attributed the strange weather too.
Fast forward to January 2007 and were in another El Nino year.
I took some pictures around the house because were having some freaky weather again, but this time its the kind that I love. We have been above freezing most of the winter.
In fact winter really hasn't even arrived yet. There is now snow and its been so warm over the last few days the spring flowers have started to bloom.
Here is a link to some information on El Nino if your interested.
